


He Takes and He Takes (and I Give)

by DilynAliceBlake



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Kinda, M/M, Soulmates, i accidentally wrote a sad thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 20:58:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7330432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DilynAliceBlake/pseuds/DilynAliceBlake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>fucking fuck okay<br/>look read the fuckin story or don't just<br/>fuck<br/>it's about burr giving more and more of himself to keep alexander going every time hamilton gives up<br/>until the end of the fucking play because burr's run out of give, so i guess it will be his turn to fucking take<br/>this can't end well</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Alexander feels sick.  It’s dark, and he’s too hot, but he’s shivering anyway.  Beside him his mother’s breaths rasp.  She’s stopped shaking.  Alexander hopes she’s getting better.  He sinks down deeper into the cover, deeper into the dark.  He blinks, and for a moment he’s in a bedroom on a proper bed, with a pillow beneath him, and a cool rag on his forehead.  Then he’s back on the matted straw, and his mother’s breaths have stopped.  

Alexander rolls over, the world around him blurry and unreal, and sinks again.  He doesn’t want to get back up.  His father left him for life, his mother for death.  Alexander’s time is up.  He never thought he’d live past twenty.  He’s had more than half that many years.  Alexander lets go.


	2. Chapter 2

Across the sea, Aaron thrashes his blankets off.  He’s too hot, and can’t stop shaking, but he _will not die_.

That’s what the doctor said, when his grandmother had put her foot down and insisted to Grandfather that “God wouldn’t mind us asking a second opinion!”

The doctor had looked down Aaron’s throat, and felt his skin, and watched him shake.

“If it were anyone else,” the man had said, “I would tell you to be worried.  Aaron won’t let this beat him though.  Kid’s got too much to live for.  He’s too determined to carry on his parent’s legacy.”

‘ _Legacy, legacy,_ ’ Aaron thinks, _‘I have to live to make my legacy, this can’t be it.’_

The covers fall to the floor, and for a moment he’s on a straw mat, a woman in torn clothing breathing her last beside him.

“Be smart.  Smile more,” she whispers, and her eyes close.  Then Aaron is back in his own bed, and rolls over to retch.


	3. Chapter 3

Aaron is Alexander is Aaron and they are dying.


	4. Chapter 4

Alexander lets go, and Aaron grabs him tight.  They both start to fade together.  They both start to blur together.

“How do we survive this?” he asks, frantic, but the other boy doesn’t seem to care.  The doctor’s words suddenly fill him with fire, but Aaron isn’t the one who needs it.  He pours it into Alexander.


	5. Chapter 5

Alexander takes and he takes and he takes, the spark of Aaron’s drive reigniting his own.  Aaron gives up what he wants to live for, since Alexander needs it more, and they both survive.


	6. Chapter 6

Aaron’s fever fades, but his fire is gone with it.  The doctor thinks that the sickness took everything out of him, that he’ll recover his spirit when some time passes.  Aaron knows better.  He talks less, smiles more.  He thinks of the wax skinned bony woman who told him to be smart, even if the words weren’t meant for him.  If Aaron took her last words from her son, even by accident, then the least he could give him back in return are all the words he doesn’t need.

Aaron turns his entire focus to his studies, and it isn’t his concern if everyone believes it’s because he still wants to accomplish great things.  Aaron is more concerned with being careful, after coming so close to death.  He wants to be smart about his life.  He wants to smile.  He wants to live to see the boy that he left in charge of their legacy make a name for himself.


	7. Chapter 7

Alexander’s fever fades.  He remembers darkness, and death creeping in, and then the sudden need to fight it off.  He has to survive, to leave a legacy.  An education seems like a good place to start.


	8. Chapter 8

Aaron is quieter, and less passionate in his goals, but he isn’t afraid to share his opinions if asked.  He doesn’t dally on decisions.  Perhaps Alexander knows he has more to give.  They meet again.


	9. Chapter 9

The next time Aaron and Alexander become _AaronandAlexander_ , Alexander is frozen in the eye of a hurricane, staring at a yellow sky.

Aaron tries to make sense of the panic-shock-fear-awe that’s weighing down Alexander’s limbs.

“Don’t just stand here, get to high ground!  What are you _doing_?”

Alexander is lost in his moment.  Aaron gives a _push_.  “Move NOW there’s no TIME!”

‘ _We’re running out of time, we’re running out of **time**_.’

Alexander’s legs start moving, guided by Aaron’s will, Aaron’s decision.  Aaron knows, without hesitation, that he has to keep Alexander moving if he wants him to survive.  He tries not to go so overboard this time.  He still can’t speak without being sure of his words twice over.  The last thing he needs is to end up spending the rest of his life waiting.

They walk, and they swim, and then they aren’t in the eye of the storm anymore.  Everything is chaos, driftwood, and salt.  Wind and thunder and lightning.  When Alexander passes out or tries to give up, Aaron moves his limbs for him.  When Alexander is awake and aware, Aaron rests, let’s Alexander have the urgency that drives them.

In his college dorm, his eyes are open and blank.  His arms and legs thrash desperately, then stop.  If his grandfather were still alive, Aaron would no doubt be exercised for his strange behavior.  His grandfather is not alive, and that doesn’t matter, because they have to keep swimming.  They must reach a hill, or perhaps a tall building, because Alexander’s feet touch something similar to ground.  The rain is less heavy, the sun reluctantly reappearing.


	10. Chapter 10

Aaron hopes that will be the end of it, but Alexander is still too lost, too close to death.  Aaron is annoyed at whoever appointed him this foreign boy’s keeper.

“What do I do?” Alexander chokes out, voice hoarse. 

Fucking fuck.  Aaron’s going to be waffling on decisions for the rest of his life, because he can’t let the idiot die.

“Go to New York.  Princeton College.  Use your brains, rise up, start your legacy.  Don’t let anything stop you.  Don’t throw away your shot.  In New York you can be a new man.”

Aaron doesn’t think that Alexander can actually hear him, but he goes ahead and gives his surety to Alexander.  The kid will just have to live enough of a life of excitement for both of them, because after all those hours of swimming through a hurricane Aaron supposes he’s probably reached his limit anyway.

They stay _AaronandAlexander_ until Alexander’s finished writing about the carnage of the storm.  Aaron shortens things where he can; tries to keep it succinct, poetic, and persuasive.  It’s not quite a ticket, but it’s the best either of them can do under the circumstances.  It will have to be enough.


	11. Chapter 11

When Aaron becomes aware of himself again, he knows that his attempt at moderation during whatever just transpired was useless.  Alexander took and kept what he needed.  All the urgency has drained out of Aaron’s bones.  He wonders how Alexander will ever be able to be satisfied, now.

His confidence and surety isn’t gone, thank God in all his kindness.  It’s just quieter, farther away.  Aaron wonders how he’ll know what to do, how he will possibly recognize when he wants something, now.

The answer, when he meets it, is both simpler and infinitely more annoying than he could have hoped.

He didn’t just share his goals with Alexander; he tied their goals together.

There’s no way to tell which wants come from whom, and even if there were, they’re all so solid that it doesn’t matter.

 _AaronandAlexander_ want the Colonies to rise up.  Aaron is quiet about it, while Alexander is exuberant for the both of them.  _BurrandHamilton_ want to join the revolution and earn a command.  Burr gets the command first, but Hamilton is admittedly better at it.

Hamilton keeps rising, and Burr tries to be satisfied for the both of them.


	12. Chapter 12

_HamiltonandBurr_ finish law school and become lawyers.

 _HamiltonandBurr_ want to shape the country their children will grow up in.

Then things get a little lopsided because only Hamilton is in the room where it happens, when both of them should be, and Burr’s attempt to fix things by running for senate only sends them careening out of control.


	13. Chapter 13

The tipping point is reached when Phillip Hamilton gets shot in a duel for his father’s honor, and Alexander decides not to want anything at all.


	14. Chapter 14

Burr is not used to carrying their drive in its entirety.  He’s where the extra, the overflow and runoff goes.  He’s quiet in his ambitions.  It’s been decades since he’s wanted like this, been this _unsatisfied_.  It drenches his every pore, sinks into him uncomfortably.

He runs for President, goes door to door campaigning, and it’s awful, but he can’t stop, because he’s _running out of time_ and _has to leave a legacy_ and _knows wholeheartedly that this is what he wants_.

It’s draining, and he hates it, but he hates Alexander more for standing in the way.

Doesn’t he understand that he’s doing this for both of them?  That this is Alexander too?  Distantly, he thinks that he probably owes Alexander an apology, for making him carry this all these years.  More important, though, is the bone he has to pick, and the words and actions he for once doesn’t have to think thrice about.

A challenge is issued.


	15. Chapter 15

Aaron is a terrible shot, but Alexander is _not,_ and his time has been _more than_ _up_ for a while now.  Aaron reaches out and he _takes_ Hamilton’s shot, because _this man will not make an orphan of his daughter._

The rest of his life is miserable and unfulfilled.  There is no satisfaction.  He survived, but he paid for it.


End file.
